Drie Fonteinen Oude Geuze | Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen

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Taste is lactic and lemony sourness with medium intensity and an exceptionally clean character. While it is definitely sour, the tartness doesn't linger too much and it drinks like a more balanced beer. Although the young age might have something to do with it. Very bubbly and very clean, I loved it!

Having had this (good) and some other (not as good) Gueuze, I am definitely editing (up) my rating of Lente, that is perhaps the best I have had till date.

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The cork pops & the smoke rises. Do I let it breathe, plug it & let it sit, chug it, cook it dinner, what do I do?!?! My dog sees my face frozen in confusion & immediately snaps me out of it with a piercing yelp. I stumble around & find my dusty tulip, give it a strong rinse, & proceed to pour.

A hazy lemon orange honey pour settles in my glass & grows a rather porous white comb-over of head. The foam thickens up on subsequent pours, but we're on to more important things. The smell has already reached me, so I gain focus & get let a little closer.

A sense of something pickled, sharp kiwis & tangy cantaloupe, something between semi-ripe watermelon & sour cherry candy(a fresh bag of sour skittles?), plenty of salt, something like stale garlic, along with some dry grass & ethanol way in the background. It's so pungent. Why am I not offended?

I go to take a sip & it just rushes in. I don't know what came over me. It must of been instinctive, I just gulped down six ounces like it was an everyday thing. ...and it should be. :D

Lemon juice, the sour sugar that Sour Patch Kids are dredged in, the white meat off half-ripe strawberries, grapefruit, citric acid is everywhere & its bitterness lingers for a long while, turning a little barky at the end. Just the faintest hint of dough in there somewhere. Why bother? :P

As it warms, the sourness flatlines some & turns a little wheaty. Letting the bottle last that long was a mistake on my part. Drink, drink!

Thin & frothy, a lightly greased taste, but it leaves a dry feeling once it goes down(like I just licked a bunch of envelopes). My tongue is getting numb, am I going to die?

Straddling the line of spoiled orange juice & yesterday's digestive juices, who can honestly say this is exactly what was intended so many years ago. Purple monkey dishwasher?

Hand me a blank check & this replaces the juice in the fridge. The only reason I can't give it a 5 here is price.

Pours slightly cloudy brilliant orange straw. Not much head
Big lemon grass and funk. Resinous herb and sharp acidity
More of the same on the palate with soft finish
Medium bodied with less carb than many other Geuze's

overall a lovely beer. balanced, crisp and complex with tons of depth. My favorite 3F to date simply because it is so drinkable and refreshing without sacrificing depth and complexity.

Appearance: pours primarily clear in a golden orangish color, in the class it is hazy and for the most part orange with a slight goldish hue. Very effervescent head that dissipates quickly, but has nice nucleation. Stunning appearance for a beer.

Aroma: Cannabis is pretty dominant to me with this one, however it still works well with the other aromas. Lots of funk, little amount of straw, some lemon zest, and a very slight amount of Brett.

Taste: Cannabis is immediate but is lost quickly with the subtle tartness, straw, lemon zest, slight orange peel and very light Brett. No earthiness present which is a bit surprising but with this beer it is actually pleasant. This beer is actually quite simple in flavor profile, but it’s simplicity is executed perfectly. It is still complex and has multiple levels of flavors to be discovered. Very well balanced and very tasty.

Mouthfeel: This is one of the best mouthfeels for a sour I’ve ever had. It is not super resinous or acidic. Very light with the perfect carbonation, and the best part is the tartness dissipates quickly and actual flavors are the only thing that lingers.

Overall: I think Cantillon makes a better Geuze, but when there is no Cantillon to be found, this will go beyond sufficing. Couldn’t pass this up in a bottle shop even if they have Cantillon!

Appearance  This one came out of the giant champagne bottle a pristine orange in color with a slight darkish-brown hue. The head was huge and fluffy. These bubble are very tight, clinging together as they slowly dissipated from the top of the liquid.

Smell  I know its an often overused phrase, but I could LITERALLY smell this from across the kitchen. I dont know the vintage, but this one has aged past the light, purely lemony nose that divulges the youth of a less-mature Gueuze. The malt base is significant, the farm light but noticeable, and the spices very musty.

Taste  This sour ball really puckers things up at the taste. The tartness is monstrous at the taste but mated well with the gigantic malt base. There are some good farmy notes in here as well, but not overly so. The sweets are more like powdered sugar than anything else. Together this Gueuze is extremely complex and rich and not for the novice drinker.

Mouthfeel  Heres where I just couldnt get enough. The carbonation is sooo tight and so tingly on the tongue. I dont know how they pack so many bubbles in here. They are not what I call cheap like in champagne. The mouthfeel is collected on this medium to full-bodied ale with some sharp, powdery spicing and even some dryness to keep things interesting.

Drinkability  This is a real sipper and only for the experienced Gueuze drinker. Its a real heavy-hitter and I wouldnt recommend it as a first try for the style. If you like big, explosive farmy sour Belgian Ales though you have to give this baby a whirl.

Update  I popped an 04 vintage in 2006 and it is right on track with my initial review of this gem. The carbonation is huge and tight, the stank blooming from the get go, and the farmy flavors are not to be messed with.

Beginning with a rather burning odor of gasoline or wood alcohol, I was rather worried about my expensive purchase. I decided to give the beer some time, as I would a glass of fine wine. It worked. Whether it was the time, the air, or the warmth of the bar, ten minutes of resting in my glass turned this brew from ethanol to exquisite...that or my nose learned to enjoy the smell of gasoline, which could also be the case.

The aromas are completely overpowering. This beer is highly acidic, very citrusy (limes and lemons mostly), and smells strongly of a pig farm. Mango and pear might be in there too but who really cares. This is more about "nose feel" than odor and this beer brings my nose to life, dresses it in a tux, and tangos it onto stage for a performance of Stomp.

Appearance is yellow-peach, very flakey, with a thick foamy off white head. The carbonation is insane but declines to tolerable levels after a few minutes.

Taste is as wild as an Irish brannigan, sour as the sour candy craze of 1991, bitter like an old English librarian drinking quinine, and as pissed as that old monk on the St. Bernie Bottle.

Mouthfeel can be extrapolated from the rest of this review.

Drinkability goes without saying.

Update: 1997 vintage consumed at the brewery on 8-18-08. The bottle quite literally had a spider on the webbed cork when it came to the table. :) It was every bit as good as the newer vintages and then some. This one CAN handle age very well. Buttery with full lemon notes.

Opened as part of a mini sour tasting, one of the most classic gueuzes out there - very excited to finally try this one after the bottle had been teasing me for so long. Pours a slightly hazy copper color with little bits of gold that streamline the edges. A soapy and bubbly white head grows and recedes in one fluid motion, leaving only a small bit of lacing at the very top of the glass.

Quite a bit of fruit skin sourness hits me on the initial whiff - very tart in character and lightly acidic, with a small amount of lacto behind it all. Some very mild hops show up, grassy and herbal, and add a very slight bitterness that extends the tartness into the realm of astringency, just for a brief moment. Tartly bitter. Is that a real thing?

Lots of funky yeast in this one, too - it's got that characteristic smell of Belgian gueuze to it. The sweaty sock funk it strong in the start and comes out even more as the beer rises in temp. A touch of finishing oak and wet hay, jammin' on the barnyard walls. Funky, funky, funky, reaching for damp and dirty blankets in the middle of a barnyard floor.

The taste starts off with a nice tartness, but it's definitely not as sour as I thought it would be, especially after smelling it. For a gauge, it's slightly less tart than Cantillon's Gueuze, for those who may have had that before this. After the initial sour apple and stone fruit skins, a mild astringency bites the tip of the tongue and quickly gives way to the funkadelic flavors. You can taste Belgium in this beer.

Drub, musky and funk yeast plagues the aftertaste, spread across a canvas of burnt oak - the barrel comes out hard in the end. Really dry overall, especially in the finish, with an easily discernible, funky bitterness upon fading out. By the final sip, oak seems to be one of the heaviest flavors of the aftertaste, and that's what I'm left with after the beer is gone. Not bad. Pretty thin bodied, crisp, wet, and sharp mouth feel, lots of carbonation.

Definitely a great gueuze, and it was interesting to see the differences in the style between this and the Cantillon gueuze (they were enjoyed back-to-back). This one was not quite as sour/tart and the oak/funk was a bit more forward. Both good in their own ways, no doubt about that. If you're on the fence about sours, try this one along with the Cantillon gueuze (if you can get/find them). If those don't convert you, then you'll probably never like sours.

EDIT: 9/4/2013

After having many, many more bottles of this, the variation is lovely. Sometimes it's much funkier, sometimes it's much more tart, but it's always delicious. I still think I prefer Cantillon's original gueuze to this one, but hey - I can still find this stuff on the shelves occasionally... win!

Flavor- The first thing that strikes me is the lovely fresh grain flavors that so rarely pop out in these beers. Brisk cracked wheat, doughy, tart, with a nice bright but lightly toasty barley husk note. Possibly this is a character helped along by the oak. Honey suckle and white tea notes just rarely break through a refreshing tartness. Again, not complex, but very nice. Suggestion of nutmeg, again, probably oak-derived.

Clear honey color with lots of bubbles that form a dense just off-white head in my tulip glass. Head reduces to a thin layer but leaves some nice sheet lacing behind.

Sour, funky aroma (who would have thought) with some dry grape undertones. Not overly complex.

I took a sip of this and I was immediately reminded of this wild, deep purple-skinned grape that grows in the Southeast, a muscadine. My great-granddad had a vine trained in his backyard, and I'd eat a ton of them whenever I was over in early fall. My granddad made wine out of these, too, like many other southern homemade wine makers. I can't get past how much this beer tastes like these slightly sour, tart wild grapes. The dryness and slight acid from the (probably bacteria, wild yeast coated) skin that makes you pucker, followed by a hint of sweetness, and then a lingering clean grape-like fruitness with a bit of earthy, astringency left over on the teeth. Just like eating muscadines; I dont know how else to describe it.

Overall, not super sour or tart. Thin to medium-thin mouthfeel with a bit of effervesence. A solid gueze in any book. Good stuff, and quite the surprise in the flavor for me.

A - After a nice pop as the cork comes out, pours a clear light copper with almost three fingers of dense white head. Head has excellent retention. Some lacing is left behind.

S - Aromas of oak, a bit of green apple and nice lemon presence, and a bit musty.

T - Nice tart beginning to the taste, with a good lemon and lemon zest presence. Musty, but in a relatively subdued way. Finish is very dry with a big tannin presence. Excellent.

M - Mouthfeel is light and crisp, and quite dry. Very refreshing.

O - Excellent geuze. Must/funk presence is nice, and much more subtle than something like Hanssenns Oude Geuze (which I also really enjoy), leading to a more refreshing drinking experience than some other geuzes.